Cavalier 1.8 head gasket gone? I spoke too soon.....

[retrogeezer]

So the car did 400 miles at the weekend but yesterday I topped the water up and it took nearly 2 litres. My better half was driving it on Sunday evening following me coming home and she says the temp guage was not over half all the way.

Anyway, it's smoking(steaming) from the exhaust and the expansion tank is bubbling like a kettle - so much for these engine being bombproof eh.

 

So, what do I do? Is whacking some bars leaks in going to help? The MOT is due at the end of the month and to be honest I was probably going to sell it anyway as the journey south was to pick up another car, the one I was driving (our old Picasso, back off my brother - no sarky comments please)

 

The engine sounds o.k, do I just carry water around with me or will it lunch itself at some point? There doesn't appear to be any water in the oil at all.

 

Video here on youtube hopefully:

 

 

 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

When I had that Cavalier automatic I did the head gasket in an evening and it could not have been any easier, plus the entire gasket set only cost about £10!!! It was amazing. (Having said that if you are thinking of flogging it as-is I might be half-tempted as I am just not gelling with my 2-litre beater at all)

[Lankytim]

I did the HG on the wifes 1.6 Astra and it was dead easy, I even left the manifolds on the head. I did it one Saturday afternoon and we went to Cornwall the next day.

[meggersdog]

L.reg ,will that be equipped with a cat ? Don't think it will go through an emissions test like that.

Those later 8valves will have an automatic cambelt adjuster so no need to arse about with the waterpump to tension the belt.As Mr Boll says very easy job to do.

[M'coli]

Skoosh case to do the head gasket on these, get it done before it gets any worse.

[Station]

Think the L reg did have a cat - my K reg Astra had one.

 

These engines are pretty much indestructible - my dad's had a HGF for about a year, and nobody noticed (there was no water in it).

[twosmoke300]

With the water pump tensioner ones dont touch it unless you have to . I have put them on without changing the tension many times. Carefully turn it on ,like a pushbike chain. Make sure cam and crank pulleys move together tho. Works on early vw's with a similar set up.

[retrogeezer]

well, it's bloody great car otherwise. Did blow a hole in the rear box at the weekend too but they are only £25 delivered. Sills are all good and only minimal rust on the arches so definitely worth saving. Reg Bollox, I may shoot you a pm but we do need it as a back up for the next 3 weeks or so while I do some work on the Picasso and it's half term so the mrs will need a car to use.

 

Having said that, it will only be pootling around town so I will just keep some water in the car.

[PhilA]

Think the L reg did have a cat - my K reg Astra had one.

 

These engines are pretty much indestructible - my dad's had a HGF for about a year, and nobody noticed (there was no water in it).

 

Yeah, we had noticed this many years ago... friend of mine drove around quite happily with about a litre of oil in the sump (looked like molasses) running on 3 cylinders (for the price of a sparkplug) and routinely no water because the radiator was knackered and it kept on going.. and going.. and going. The body fell apart around the engine. E reg, if my memory serves. He sold it to a kid who put a new radiator in, a set of plugs, gave it a service, got it running sweet then got it impounded and crushed for driving about with no insurance/tax etc.

 

 

--Phil

[New POD]

I have owned a few cavaliers - 4 off mk2 cavs, and a mk3

(And a few astras too)

 

I did the head gaskets on a 1.8 sri mk2, a 1.8 carbed mk3, and a 1.6 astra mk3.

 

I am very slow and steady, and stripping the head off took about 2 hours, followed by a skim, and a pressure test, and then reassembly with new bolts, and cam belt, and on the cavs a new water pump. Astra had an tensioner thing.

[Albert Ross]

If it's boiling, but not mixing, and there's no misfire, try a thermostat first...... It might be stuck shut.

[Rusty_Rocket]

It's a C18NZ I'm guessing?  It has most probably gone between a waterway and pot- almost always on these due to aluminium corrosion of the head.  A gasket and skim usually makes them fine for another 100k 

It's certainly worth repairing, as above- it's a simple job.  I would take the opportunity to sniff out a 20NE engine and dump that in along with its ECU and loom.  It goes straight in, gives more power and is just as economic.

The bigger engine used to be £50-£100 when I played with Cavs.. I suspect they are a little more expensive nowadays 

[retrogeezer]

There is a misfire for a few seconds on start up but after that it runs as sweet as ever. I thought the bubbling and smoke from the exhaust was a sign of coolant and exhaust mixing?  

 

I think I have a thermostat in the garage.

[retrogeezer]

Thing is after buying the picasso it is surplus anyway, I still have my Escort and Mondeo as well and this was going to be sold in a few weeks. 

[Albert Ross]

Cold misfire? Gasket failure. Whip the plugs out to confirm. Any one that is a different colour (Number 4 normally) will tell you where the issue is. Enjoy.

[retrogeezer]

Yep - misfire on cold start.   So this would have happened anyway and the long journey had nothing to do with it?

[Station]

Yeah, we had noticed this many years ago... friend of mine drove around quite happily with about a litre of oil in the sump (looked like molasses) running on 3 cylinders (for the price of a sparkplug) and routinely no water because the radiator was knackered and it kept on going.. and going.. and going. The body fell apart around the engine. E reg, if my memory serves. He sold it to a kid who put a new radiator in, a set of plugs, gave it a service, got it running sweet then got it impounded and crushed for driving about with no insurance/tax etc.

 

 

--Phil

 

Yeah, just shows engines don't have to be fragile like most moderns are. I don't know what they did to make those types run for so long with minimal maintenance.

[PhilA]

Yeah, just shows engines don't have to be fragile like most moderns are. I don't know what they did to make those types run for so long with minimal maintenance.

 

Probably because someone in the design department actually knew metallurgy and said "What'll happen if someone in Abu Dhabi driving one of these as a taxi runs it dry? What'll expand at the same rate, or what'll allow that to expand there without cracking? This design will allow that, and it also adds strength to the block right here... and that expands at this rate so will force back against it until it cools and keep it all in line. Yup, that'll do it."

 

These days it s "We need this to be as light and as powerful as possible, if they break it, we'll just get them fit a new one."

 

--Phil

[mat_the_cat]

These days it s "We need this to be as light and as powerful as possible, if they break it, we'll just get them fit a new one."

 

You forgot to mention cheap!

[Rusty_Rocket]

You forgot to mention cheap!

 

I'm probably getting (even more) cynical as I get older but I suspect most manufacturers design-in a very thin safety margin nowadays.

I agree with everything said above, and if you did get away with running low on oil/ out of water you could get away with it with a bit of luck.

 

Most modern engines will not tolerate anywhere near the same amount of abuse or neglect, even at very low mileages.  That way, when they do fail, the dealership can point the finger of blame directly at the driver with no chance of the customer even attempting to argue his case and get a repair under warranty for example.

"That'll be £3,456 for your factory-reconditioned engine please sir" 

[PhilA]

You forgot to mention cheap!

 

They've always had to be as cheap as possible, but how far you're willing to push the line of cheap versus reliable? Falls mostly into "design lifespan". Five digit odometers, et al.

 

--Phil

[Albert Ross]

It's all electronic tell tale stuff... if you overspeed the engine, it's logged. If it's low on coolant, and the light is on, and it goes over a certain temperature, it's logged. We can tell what time of day it happened, how many miles were driven SINCE the initial warning lamp, how many start ups, and it won't be long before we know how many times the bonnet was lifted since..... Then again, I had to replace a dipstick for a customer today..... in 12 months, it had NEVER been taken out.... rusted in (thankfully a plastic dipstick) so I was able to melt it and make it malleable enough to get it shifted. I hope they learnt summat today.

[twosmoke300]

That reminds me of a 6 month old type r civic we had recovered into us at a Honda dealer . Cronic misfire , low compression on number 1 .

Engine strip sees the inlet valves on that cylinder had broken off above the collets so werent lifting

Customer gets quite shirty about poor Honda quality etc until I show him the printoff of the fault codes.

 

No1 cylinder misfire

 

Engine overspeed condition (14500 rpm logged !! )

 

 

 

Has sir gone down 3 gears instead of 1 perhaps.

[PhilA]

Fourteen and a half thousand and the bottom end is still attached to everything else?

 

Color me impressed.

 

 

My Bluebird had.. electronic transistorized points. The rev limiter on that was valve bounce.

 

--Phil

[twosmoke300]

Never knew what happened to it cos they took it away after we said it wasn't warranty . It was running though . Had a couple of them cos people weren't used to the 6 speed box and it's close shift.

They do rev to 9k anyway.

[Pillock]

VTEC kicked in yoBOOM!

[twosmoke300]

Look a my wice wocket go.

[HH-R]

Props to my newish Fiat, which lost ALL of its oil recently and seems to have suffered no damage. I still don't know how it happened... serviced it over xmas (oil & filter, plugs, leads and air filter), 3 months later, BOOM and the oil is all over the bottom of the car and up the back window. Oil pressure light came on but I had either checked it that morning or the day before so I knew the level was OK, I pulled over quickly thinking something must be seriously wrong or the sensor has failed in some way.

 

Old filter *looks* fine. Still don't really know what went on! A new filter and bottle of oil later though and it seems happy... saying that though, the FIRE was born ten years before I was.

[Sloth in a bowl]

Props to my newish Fiat, which lost ALL of its oil recently and seems to have suffered no damage. I still don't know how it happened... serviced it over xmas (oil & filter, plugs, leads and air filter), 3 months later, BOOM and the oil is all over the bottom of the car and up the back window. Oil pressure light came on but I had either checked it that morning or the day before so I knew the level was OK, I pulled over quickly thinking something must be seriously wrong or the sensor has failed in some way.

 

Old filter *looks* fine. Still don't really know what went on! A new filter and bottle of oil later though and it seems happy... saying that though, the FIRE was born ten years before I was.

 

 

I over heated a FIRE engine on a motorway with no water, pulled over to the hard shoulder when the temp gauge touched red then waited for it to cool a bit before traveling a couple more miles then pulling over to cool.

Half a dozen stops later I got to the services, bought some coolant and carried on.

 

I found the next day that the water pump leaked, but only with the engine running.

 

The car did me another 12 months with no engine grief (though other stuff failed), a solid bit of engine design.

[PhilA]

I lost all the water in my Rover V8 engined Vauxhall Victor FD on the M5 on a sunny bank-holiday weekend.

 

Burbling along, the temp gauge out of sight somewhere in the passenger's (not fitted at the time, anyone who's owned/ridden in a FD Ventora will attest to the stupid placement of the ammeter, temperature, fuel and oil pressure gauges) view, small hose that links the radiator to the inlet manifold failed. Look in the mirror before changing lanes... hm, it's a bit hazy out. 

 

...

 

Ohh.. is that trail of smoke me?

 

Oh, it is.

 

Temperature gauge needle not actually visible it's so far out the wrong side of H

 

 

Indicator on, pull across several lanes of traffic. Engine's stopped rotating by about 10mph, despite the ignition still being on. Squeak to a halt on the side of the Avon bridge (the big bit by where they keep all the Toyotas to ship out). Give the starter a try. CLAK CLAK. Get out, pop the bonnet. What I initially thought was steam flashing over like an old Glo-Worm boiler was in fact the oil in the sump boiling.

Call my old man, tell him to bring hosepipe, jubilee clips, lots of water and, oh, a tow rope..

 

Found a picture from my old-old-old-old phone:

Sat on the Armco and waved back at people who honked at me and waved.

 

Traffic Patrol turns up. What's wrong with it, when are you going to move it? Uh, it's overheated and seized, help is on the way.

 

Old man turns up 45 minutes later. Pour in water, it's still so hot it flashes to steam until I've got a litre or so inside. Replace the busted hose. Check the oil, there's still some in there, should be ok. Pile the rest of the water and hose etc into the passenger side footwell. Give the key a twist. CLAK

 

CLAK   CLAK  *curses*  CLAKCLAKKKKKKKKKKRrrr--rrr-----rrrrrr-rr-rr-rRRRR-BRAP------RRRRrrRRRRRrrr

 

 

CRAAARRRRR-BRAP-BRAP-BRAP-BRAP-BRAP-VRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMM--POP PoP Pop pop

 

 

 

That'll do... got going, firing on 5, cleared up to firing on 7 a few hundred yards later, back to mostly 8 a few miles later. Got to Gloucester just fine (missed the footy but the game was cack apparently, but the BBQ made up for it), and back home again.

Ran that for ages without any trouble until I changed the engine out.

 

Despite the rep those engines got over here, they are fairly hardy. Also, more cylinders. Preferably 8. In a V configuration.

 

 

Moderns should take a leaf out of these engines' books.

 

 

--Phil